You're Getting Harold
by JohnnyLurg
Summary: Harold undergoes a one-eighth life crisis.
1. Chapter 1

It was 10 a.m. recess at P.S. 118 and Stinky Peterson and his best friend Sid were gossiping about their classmate Harold behind his back.

"Have you ever realized," drawled Stinky, adjusting the spikes on his bracelet, "that Harold and Torvald are the exact same age? I reckon that the only reason all of us kids pick on Torvald and not him is on account o' that Torvald lives on the edge of ol' P.S. 119's neighborhood with his mom who ain't got a job or a husband or nothing an' his friends are all in juvenile hall like Smedvick, whereas Harold's a dang millionaire, or somethin', who could swim in a dang ol' vat o' lemon puddin' but I digress 'cuz that kid Harold is 13 and dang near looks it." Stinky took a modest swig of Yahoo Soda. "Yup."

"Boy howdy!" agreed Sid, as he picked his toucan snout with his knuckle. "I bet if you added up the ages of Wolfgang, Edmund, Torvald, Harold, and that Big Patty he's always flirting with, you'd be in the same ballpark as Arnold's grandpa!"

Neither of them expected to see Harold watching them, teary-eyed, from behind P.S. 118's Dumpster, sharing an extra-large Mr. Fudgee's bar with an oblivious Chocolate Boy. Embarrassed by the presence of his target, Sid sprinted toward the heartbroke Harold, his stringy hair and Beatle boots alike shining in the air.

"It wasn't me, Harold! It was all Stinky, I swear!" panted Sid conspicuously. "You can't get mad! Think of all the good times we had! Remember the time we mooned Principal Wartz? Or that other time when we thought we blew the school down and went out on the lam? C'mon, Harold, you're not that old!"

"It's clobbering time," muttered Harold, and punched Sid with five avengers that were not THE Five Avengers, tearing a gaping hole in Sid's green baseball cap which exposed his secret bald spot. About a dozen students, from queen bee Rhonda Wellington Lloyd to a few outsider geeks, snickered at the hapless Sid, who found himself echoing Harold's immature catchphrase as he headed for home, aware he would only add insult to injury by receiving discipline from Mr. Simmons for his absence.

"Want another Mr. Fudgee?" asked Chocolate Boy, extending a melted candy bar in Harold's fat face.

"Go eat a radish," growled Harold, and stomped off.

The geeks of P.S. 118 hung out on the side wall of P.S. 118, and Harold was an unexpected guest as he rarely strayed from the stickball field during recess. Today, there were four in all: orange-haired Eugene, whose family once attended Harold's synagogue before they were excommunicated when Rabbi Goldberg believed Eugene to be a plague upon Hillwood City's Jewish community (the fact that his father had allowed him to play a ham in his school's theatre production didn't help matters); his supposed girlfriend Sheena, who was not a punk rocker as her name would suggest, or anything else for that matter, and her distinct lack of personality or charm unfortunately led to her inescapable position as a P.S. 118 outcast; Brainy, whose name appeared to also be a misnomer as he usually received unsatisfactory grades, but that was only due to a lack of concentration brought about by his chronic severe asthma; and Curly, whose name also wasn't the misnomer it was brought out to be; true, his hairs were as straight as 100,000 black arrows, but his soul was so twisted, it gave students, teachers, and especially administrators their worst nightmares.

"Guys, I'm one of you now," whined Harold to the four outcasts.

"Oh, great! I'm ever so glad to have you back in my life!" cheered Eugene.

"What in the heck have you got to offer us? Can you not see how our social group is so tightly formed in four perfect angles?" roared Curly, veins of anger forming behind his foggy glasses though his eyes remained invisible.

"Harold, is everything okay? My aunt, the school nurse, has been awfully concerned about your physical health," remarked Sheena.

"Uhhhhhhh…hi, Harold…" wheezed Brainy.

"The other kids are making fun of me because I'm old," moaned Harold. "I don't know what to do."

"I say you shall leave, doomed Earth slave!" cackled Curly. "Your many revolutions around the sun will not help you here!"

"Any advice would be great. I want to—I want to be somebody. Someone people respect. No one respects me anymore, except my mommy," cried Harold.

And at that moment, Brainy's sinuses suddenly cleared and he began to speak in a remarkably eloquent and refined tone. "Young Harold, it is not the respect of others which should matter to you, but your very own self-respect, which, my dear boy, I'm afraid is at stake. Our friend Curly, though unfortunately misguided in many regards, speaks the truth, for advanced as your age is; it is eventually irrelevant to the actual problems at hand."

"Uh, Brainy, I never said anything about self-respect," said Curly, hunching his head at his equally nerdy friend. "I'd say Harold should go to Big Gino and ask him to reinvent himself. Heck, I go to Big Gino all the time for all my problems! Just last month, I got in a fight with that other geek Billy because it was my turn to be the hall monitor. Big Gino said he'd clear up matters by dealing with Billy."

"I haven't seen Billy since then," commented Sheena. "I wonder what happened to him."

"How did you get Big Gino to do that?" Harold asked Curly. "You're a lowly geek."

"True, but I am the sole heir to the tremendous Gamelthorpe fortune. With my family's influence, I can manipulate others beyond pitiful human belief."

"Then why don't you ask Big Gino to fix you up with Rhonda, or use your fortune to win her over?" asked the skeptical Harold.

"I could," said Curly. "But it's not as fun lusting over her if she reciprocates it."

"You are the strangest kid I know," said Harold. "There's no way I'm approaching Big Gino."


	2. Chapter 2

"I can't believe I'm approaching Big Gino," Harold said aloud as he skulked up to the four foot tall schoolyard loan shark and his towering sixth grade bodyguards.

"Harold Berman," spoke Big Gino calmly, sucking on a lollipop. "What matters brought you here today?"

"I need you to make me cool."

"Sure, sure. I tell you what, I tell you what. Let me make you an offer you can't refuse. I make you cool, but you can't hang out with anyone other than us," said Big Gino. "Deal?"

"I think so. What happens if I refuse?" asked Harold.

"You sleep with the goldfishes," said Big Gino.

"That's not so bad," remarked Harold. "My uncle owns an alligator farm, and I slept on that once."

"Remember what happened to your old chum Eugene's goldfish?"

"Not really," said Harold. "Okay, I'll be in your club."

"Sure, sure," said Big Gino. "In the club it is." Big Gino led Harold to his gang's secret den underneath P.S. 118 where he supplied Harold with his best pinstriped suit and a flashy mauve motorbike.

"Now, there's one thing I can't fix," admitted Big Gino, his silent henchmen nodding.

"What is it?" asked Harold. "With this cool new suit, everyone will forget I'm old! It'll be like I never had those weird hairs or those weird dreams about Rhonda in the first place."

"Spare me the details of your aging, please," said Big Gino. "Alls I'm saying is that you can never be cool with that tooth."

"What tooth?" asked Harold. "I have 28 teeth."

"That's odd, all of us here have 24," said Big Gino. "What you've got to do is pull that tooth on the bottom corner of your mouth, the one that hangs out. It's unattractive like."

"I'll ask my parents to remove it tomorrow morning!"

"Oh yeah, your parents are dentists. You people are so lucky," said one of Big Gino's cronies.

"Show the boy some respect," said Big Gino. "We're all about respect here."

"Can I have my tooth removed?" Harold asked his parents at the dinner table that evening.

"Chaim Harold Berman!" gasped Marilyn, Harold's mother. "You know your teeth are as special as all the other kids', don't let those bullies get to you like that!"

"Uh, I hate to butt in, but I think Harold's right, dear," said Jerry, Harold's father.

"Jerry! How can you encourage such horrible thoughts in our little Harold's punim?"

"I'm just saying he might need to see an orthodontist, is all. It's not exactly a normal trait on human beings. Maybe on those alligators your brother works with but…"

Harold ran out of the house, crying tears that definitely weren't alligator ones.

"I can't deal with him anymore," whined Marilyn. "13 years old and not a sign of improvement."

"I agree, the boy's old for his age," said Jerry. "Sometimes I wonder if he's even aware of that."


End file.
